1. Researching the language of sex: gender,
discourse and (im)politeness1
José Santaemilia
Universitat de València
1.- The language of sex: multiple texts and discourses
Let me say from the outset: sex –and the language employed to denote
sex or to metaphorise sexual anxiety– is a worthy subject of observation
and research. However, a long tradition of prejudices or censorship, of
political correction or religious intransigence, has judged this otherwise.
Without a doubt, sex is one of the most profound human experiences and
a complex index of identity –besides, the language of sex permeates all
kinds of texts, genres or media.
Sex(uality) is a discourse which stands at the crossroads of at least two
compelling forces: on the one hand, a private and intimate experience
which articulates our voices and our desires; and on the other hand, a
complex process of discursive construction (Foucault 1971) which is
profoundly ideological and highly dependent on the morality of each
historical period, on the changeable dialectics between individual values
and social discipline. Each period has witnessed fierce linguistic as well
as political struggles to impose on others words or concepts of profound
moral and/or ideological import. There have always been unending ‘wars
of words’ (Dunant 1994) over a few selected sex-related signifiers. For
instance, Michel Foucault (in The History of Sexuality, 1984) documents
the efforts of 19th-century official psychiatry to coin the term
1
I wish to thank the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología and the Instituto de la
Mujer (Ministerio de Asuntos Sociales) for their support: research projects “Discurso y
(des)cortesía y género: Estudio contrastivo inglés/castellano/catalán” (BFF2003-07662)
and “Interacción institucional y género: La participación de mujeres y hombres en la
comunicación desarrollada en el seno de las instituciones” (I+D+I, nº exp. 26/02),
respectively.
The Language of Sex: Saying and Not Saying (2005) ed. José Santaemilia
Valencia: Universitat de València. 3-22.
THE LANGUAGE OF SEX: SAYING & NOT SAYING
‘homosexual’ as a crime-associated malady, or ‘lesbianism’ as cerebral
anomaly.2 At a more general level, feminists believe that sexual terms are
likely to undergo ‘semantic derogation’ (Schultz 1975) as part of a more
general process of sexualisation or metapho(e)r(ot)ization of women.
Many terms like whore, tramp, trollop or nympho underwent parallel
processes of feminisation and pejoration, or rather of pejoration as
feminisation.
We have to remember that just as sex(uality) –as well as social
attitudes to it– is constituted in discourse, so sexual terms today are
variously and contradictorily subject to challenge, confirmation or
reclamation. But sexual language is a much more wide-ranging discourse.
We can verify an overwhelming presence of sex in our daily lives –in our
words, in our texts, in our symbolic projections. It is present in a number
of words which serve to describe our body, to prescribe medical care, to
arouse readers erotically, etc.; it is also present in a series of genres such
as erotic novels or pornography, and even in most contemporary fiction;
also in endless series of discursive situations.
Some individual words may sound trivial or ultra-formal but others
are likely to trigger off virulent social reactions. For instance, D.H.
Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928) was prosecuted mainly for its
profusion of four-letter words (see Rembar 1968). Lawrence’s work is a
good example of the use of sexual terms to explore and challenge both
individual and societal moral conventions about sexual behaviour.
Lawrence places language at the very centre of the deployment of
sexuality. The presence of individual words such as ‘cunt’ or ‘fuck’ may
lead to heated debates over private honour or public morality, or even to
obscenity trials. The 1960 trial of the unexpurgated edition of Lady
Chatterley’s Lover was concerned with whether terms denoting the
genitalia and copulation were artistically suitable.
Compiling all the sexual words or expressions has been a popular task
among a great number of researchers. Just to name a few: Partridge
(1968) compiled a famous glossary of Shakespeare’s sexual and bawdy
2
More recent examples are provided today by efforts to criminalize words or attitudes
(‘terrorism’, ‘abortion’ or ‘nationalism’), undertaken by such ultra-conservative
institutions as George Bush’s puritanical America, the Roman Catholic Church or the
Spanish right-wing Partido Popular –all three use moral issues to criminalize all forms of
ideological dissent and politico-religious dialogue.
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1. Researching the language of sex: gender, discourse and (im)politeness
terms; Rubinstein (1984) documents a great deal of references to
Shakespeare’s sexual puns; Gordon (1994) thoroughly glosses
Shakespearean and Stuart sexual terminology, with nearly two thousand
words and phrases. Sánchez Benedito (1998, 2004) lists some ten
thousand erotic euphemisms and dysphemisms (with their Spanish
equivalents) found in famous individual authors, erotic fiction, erotic
magazines, etc.
The multiple significance of the language of sex can be seen in the
following newspaper articles, which are not uncommon at all:
Sir Bob
Fouls up
Jamie ‘needs a
mouthwash’
say teachers
SIR Bob Geldof was in hot water after
using the f-word on children’s
television yesterday. Cat Deeley, host
of music show CD:UK immediately
apologised for the former pop star’s
slip, adding: “And you were doing so
well there, Bob!” A studio insider
said: “Sir Bob apologised off-air. He
wasn’t told off but it’s unlikely he’ll
be invited back soon”.
JAMIE OLIVER swears too much on his
latest TV series Jamie’s School
Dinners, a parent-teacher group
claimed yesterday. The celebrity
chief should release a special ‘clean’
version of the show for children, said
Margaret Morrissey of the National
Confederation of Parent Teacher
Associations.
SUNDAY EXPRESS November 16, 2003
METRO March 16, 2005
A series of conclusions can be drawn from these articles:
English-language speakers do use words or expressions which –
directly or indirectly– refer to sex. Sexual language is present in most
everyday contexts.
– There are great difficulties and social pressures when uttering sexrelated words or expressions, especially in some settings (with
children) and in some genres (TV discourse).
– There are unspoken norms –unspoken but taken to be universally
accepted– of what it is ‘appropriate’, ‘correct’ or ‘polite’ to say.
–
5
THE LANGUAGE OF SEX: SAYING & NOT SAYING
–
Through (sexual) language we may provoke disapproval, censure or
social exclusion.
This paper is an attempt to invite a wide-ranging analysis into the
signification of sexual language –which has been widely used, since time
immemorial, by speakers and writers. Its use has given rise to differing
speaking practices and settings, literary genres and traditions, as well as
ideological phenomena such as censorship or taboo, obscenity or
pornography, etc.
2.- Sexual language and gender
There are several studies dealing, one way or another, with the language
of sex, mostly carried out by gender scholars. Within sociolinguistics,
there has been a strongly held (traditional) stereotype somehow
associating men with the language of sex: for sociolinguists like Trudgill
(1972) masculinity is associated with linguistic toughness and roughness
(which includes, among other traits, swearwords).
Several studies have placed sexual language at the centre of research.
Eble (1977) sees linguistic use as a continuum stretching from
characteristically male to characteristically female, with an area in
between which is neither. Eble confirms previous sociolinguistic
stereotypes:
Terms of hostility and abuse such as curses and obscenities are generally
associated with masculinity, whereas euphemistic and superlative terms
are associated with femininity; neutral terms are associated with neither
sex. (Eble 1977: 295)
and confirms the gendered nature of sexual language:
Probably the most obvious sex-linked feature in American English usage
is the absence of swear words and obscenities in the speech of wellmannered women. (Eble 1977: 295)
6
1. Researching the language of sex: gender, discourse and (im)politeness
This stereotype seems almost untenable today, but as all stereotypes it
still preserves part of its force and it does influence the behaviour of a
certain segment of the population. Quite a few women have, however,
explicitly challenged the stereotype, and an increasing number of women
have violated social expectations, and shown a certain feminine linguistic
‘impropriety’: Germaine Greer received a summons to appear in court for
using indecent words during a public address; Erica Jong was requested
to avoid swearwords in her talks; Spanish contemporary writers like
Lucía Etxebarria use sexual language as a sort of provocation both in
their books and in their public appearances.
Julia P. Stanley (1977) deals with naming practices and with
stereotyping –she studies the names given by men to sexually available
women. She considers that:
The names that men have given to women who make themselves sexually
available to them reveal the underlying metaphors by which men
conceive of their relationships wtih women, and through which women
learn to perceive and define themselves. (Stanley 1977: 305)
She analyzes 220 terms men use for prostitutes –this astonishing
variety represents, in Stanley’s words, the great variety of roles and
metaphors assigned to women as sexual objects. Women are considered
as: receptacles for the excretions of men (bedpan, slopjar), animals
(bitch, sweathog, quail), inanimate objects (mattress, baggage,
pisspallet), holes for men (nutcracker, bullseye, organgrinder), etc. All of
them show that “the only way a woman can define her sexuality with the
names provided by our culture is demeaning, shameful, and/or
oppressively non-existent, should she choose to reject the terms that men
associate with her sexuality” (Stanley 1977: 305).
Barbara Risch, however, offers a significantly different interpretation.
In a study of derogatory terms (‘dirty’ words) that women use to refer to
men, she addresses the stereotype which considers sex-related terms
associated with masculinity. The wealth of examples Risch gets from
women (bastard, asshole, dick, prick, bitch, study, jerk-off, whore, slut,
bulge, etc.) leads her to wonder: “Is nonstandard speech really associated
with masculinity, or is it more a signification of public versus private
discourse?” (Risch 1987: 358).
7
THE LANGUAGE OF SEX: SAYING & NOT SAYING
Deborah Cameron (1995) conducted an experiment among American
college students, both female and male, to list terms for the penis. The
assignment proved enjoyable and the list of terms thus produced revealed
deep-rooted cultural and ideological assumptions about gender and
sexuality. There are some differences between the lists offered by men
and women: men metaphorized the penis as a person (his Excellency,
your Majesty, Genghis Khan, Kojak, Dick, Peter, Mr. Happy), an animal
(King Kong, hog, one-eyed trouser snake, python), a tool (garden hose,
screwdriver, drill, fuzzbuster), a weapon (passion rifle, purple helmeted
love warrior, destroyer) or food (love popsicle, vienna sausage, piece of
pork); women’s terms for the penis, on the other hand, include nonsense
terms (dickhead, schmuck, tallywacker), useless things (pencil, bloodengorged pole, third leg), names (Fred, Peter-dinkie), animals (visions of
horses), weapons (atlas rocket) or food (wiener, biscuit).
Cameron’s experiment with sexual terms reveals opposing –and
clearly gendered– ideological assumptions about gender and sex(uality).
Men, primarily, show serious anxiety over masculinity and sexuality:
they “are not simply reproducing myths and stereotypes. They are also
recognizing them as myths and stereotypes; and to a significant extent,
they are laughing at them” (Cameron 1995: 211). By ridiculing terms for
the penis, they paradoxically recirculate them (masculinity as dominance
and sex as war and conquest). Women, as was predictable, reject the
overall male metaphorical schema: they avoid mythic or heroic overtones
and identify the penis with violence and aggression. Metaphors turn out
to be cultural constructions, though of a highly predictable nature.
A similar study is presented by Fernández Fontecha & Jiménez
Catalán (2003): they carry out a contrastive analysis (English/Spanish) of
gendered metaphorical usages of the word pairs fox/vixen and bull/cow
and their Spanish equivalents zorro/zorra and toro/vaca. Animal
metaphors seem a good way of documenting the process of ‘semantic
derogation’ which both languages share. After a careful analysis of the
main metaphorical meanings of the words mentioned when applied to
people, the authors conclude that “women’s sexual behavior is a constant
in both animal pairs in both languages” (Fernández Fontecha & Jiménez
Catalán 2003: 793). Men-related metaphorical usages –in stark contrast to
sociolinguistic beliefs– usually downplay their sexual nature.
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1. Researching the language of sex: gender, discourse and (im)politeness
This points to an important area of concern in gender and language
studies: Western languages are largely androcentric and, consequently,
construct largely androcentric worlds, which are contested by feminism
and by more egalitarian attitudes in society. Sexual language is an
important source for insulting women. Stanley (1977: 316) affirms:
“Women insult men by reference to unpleasantness in their personalities,
but men insult women by reference to their availability for sexual use.”
Sex is one of the obvious targets of swearing, insults, etc. and it is often
done along gender(ed) lines –and hence, an abundance of ‘dirty’ jokes, of
jokes about women or wives, etc. Exploiting the sexual nature of women
(in jokes, stories, etc.) is an obvious and widespread way of degrading
women.
3.- The language of sex and the expression of
(im)politeness
Besides the textual, cultural, generic or discoursal perspectives on sexual
language, we would like to suggest a further avenue of exploration: the
connection of sexual language with the expression of politeness. This is a
largely unexplored area of research.
Politeness is basically an expression of concern for the feelings of
others, manifested linguistically and non-linguistically. It refers to any
sort of behaviour (verbal or non-verbal tokens, gestures, icons, etc.)
through which deference and solidarity for interlocutors is made explicit.
Politeness has both a social and a linguistic character, and helps to
regulate all types of communicative behaviour. Brown and Levinson
(1978, 1987) set up the field of politeness studies as a series of universal
human ‘face wants’ and the use of a series of universal strategies for
conversation participants to mitigate speech acts which might threaten
someone’s face. But as Sell argues:
I do not see it as coming into operation only when people facethreateningly address each other, talk about other people, or make
commands, requests, or enquiries. I see all interaction, and all language,
as operating within politeness parameters. (Sell 1992: 114)
9
THE LANGUAGE OF SEX: SAYING & NOT SAYING
Possibly politeness is one of the most obvious ways of reasserting
(irrespective of immediately recognizable polite or impolite utterances)
one’s discursive position and strategies. Ways of being polite or impolite
differ from culture to culture and from individual to individual. The use
of swearwords among groups of young people, for instance, may express
either rejection or in-group membership. Kuiper (1991) analyses sexual
humiliation rituals (in common camaraderie formulas like you fucking old
woman, you wanker, cunt, you great penis and many others) as a strategy
of solidarity among New Zealand rugby players. So sexual insults can be
–among other things– a way of reinforcing friendship and of
strengthening the in-group membership dynamics.
Sexual language is, at a stereotypical level, catalogued as impolite and
constantly demands unending apologies and justifications (see Braun
1999). But sexual language is also –again at a stereotypical level–
considered as gendered. Janet Holmes (1995) has popularized a wellknown paradigm on politeness along clear gender lines: she opens her
book Women, men and politeness (1995) with a direct question: “Are
women more polite than men? The question is deceptively simple” (1995:
1) and she gives a straight answer: “I think the answer is ‘yes, women are
more polite than men’” (1995: 1). The picture is very neat and is
concomitant with the ‘two-cultures’ approach suggested by Maltz &
Borker (1982) and Tannen (1990). Women and men, then, in Holmes’s
influential view, neatly belong to differing politeness cultures:
Men tend to dominate public talking time, for instance, while women
often have to work hard to get them to talk in the privacy of their homes.
[…] Women tend to use questions, and phrases such as you know to
encourage others to talk. […] Women compliment others more often than
men do, and they apologise more than men do too. (Holmes 1995: 2)
For Brown and Levinson (1987: 251) it appears that “women are more
positively polite” than men, and that “women use negative politeness
strategies in situations where men do not, for example in hedging
expressions of emphatic opinion or strong feelings” (ibidem). Men, by
contrast, resort to a set of different strategies (sexual jokes, ‘report’ or
‘lecturing’ style, etc.). A common element seems to be that women use
10
1. Researching the language of sex: gender, discourse and (im)politeness
sexual language less frequently than men do. Besides, many studies or
analyses of sexual language or literature were designed as analyses of a
marginal variety or of a forbidden type of text.
Specific features of what constitutes politeness or impoliteness differ
from culture to culture and from individual to individual. Within Brown
and Levinson’s theory, sexual language would constitute a stereotypical
example of FTA, because through it we reveal areas of human geography
and intimate desires which most individuals are reluctant to reveal. The
language of sex would be a prototypical example of a language which is
likely to embarrass, degrade or humiliate the listener or reader. For a
traditional theory of politeness, directives, threats, insults, complaints,
disagreements, criticisms and sexual language naturally constitute facethreatening speech acts.
Sexual language may, however, pose interesting challenges to
politeness studies. One of the most obvious fields of connection between
politeness and sexual language is the territory of euphemisms and
dysphemisms. In medical consultations, for instance, we find a mixture of
formal, clinical, anatomical language (‘scrotum’, ‘testicles’, ‘fallopian
tube’) with euphemistic, imprecise terms (‘sleeping with’, ‘going to bed
with’). How to talk about sex and sexual health is a really serious matter:
it may be a major source of unease and an impediment to the necessary
medical treatment. The 1998 HEA publication Talking about sexual
health (Mitchell & Wellings 1998) makes it clear that the way doctors,
nurses or advisers use sex-related terms –as well as the very terms they
use– may cause offence, embarrassment or even rejection.
Both euphemisms and dysphemisms may have social consequences:
the former, safeguarding social values; the latter, provoking strong moral
rejection. But this is only in theory: explicit sexual (and offensive) terms
may constitute either an offence or an erotic booster, a token of close
friendship or a challenge to one’s self-esteem. As Burridge summarizes:
In contemporary Western society, euphemism is typically the polite thing
to do, and offensive language (or dysphemism) is little more than the
breaking of a social convention. Many euphemisms are alternatives for
expressions speakers or writers would simply prefer not to use on a given
occasion. (Burridge 1996: 42)
11
THE LANGUAGE OF SEX: SAYING & NOT SAYING
In most cases, sexual language seems to erase the canonical
distinction between positive and negative politeness. The language of sex
constitutes an ethical universe in itself, which is likely to prompt a
myriad of responses –from erotic arousal to indifference, from light
contempt to indignant moral superiority. All these might be triggered by a
single word, the tone of voice, the topic under discussion, etc. The type of
reaction also depends on cultural assumptions or expectations, on the
period’s attitude towards the body, sexuality or differing sexual identities.
We are faced with the ambivalent realization that sexual language can
express, simultaneously, politeness and impoliteness. Suffice it to recall
Labov’s (1972) study on ritual insults among Black gang members or
Kuiper’s (1991) analysis of sexual insults used to reinforce in-group
membership and a shared identity. In this light, we may wonder whether
cat-whistles are instances of ‘compliments’ or of FTAs. Cultural
differences in the attitude to the language of sex may explain the
existence of differing and contradictory manifestations. In LatinAmerican cultures, cat-whistles are rather common and range from mild
appreciative comments on the body to highly obscene or degrading
remarks that refer to sexual actions or feelings. As for Turkish boys,
Dundes et al. (1972) interpret their verbal duelling as a
gendered/sexualised rite de passage which allows boys “to repudiate the
female world with its passive sexual role and to affirm the male world
with its active sexual role” (Dundes et al. 1972: 159). Sexual language
(mainly in the form of insults) function for these male groups as a
reinforcement of solidarity.
Erotic language (and erotic literature) poses similar problems to a
theory of politeness. There are erotic passages in many texts, as eroticism
is a stylization of sexual language, and sexual language is everywhere.
Erotic genres use sexual language abundantly, in more or less explicit
ways, though in specific erotic novels (e.g. Fanny Hill) euphemism is the
fundamental styleme (see Santaemilia 2001).
Pornography is sometimes considered a sub-genre of erotic literature,
but it is a much more widespread phenomenon –in D.H. Lawrence’s
words, “the attempt to insult sex, to do dirt on it” (Lawrence 1959: 69).
Compared with erotic language, pornography appears as soon as pleasure
or desire become mere merchandise, and is a further step towards the
12
1. Researching the language of sex: gender, discourse and (im)politeness
trivialisation and objectification of human sex(uality). Contrary to
popular expectations, pornography de-eroticizes all forms of sexuality
and all forms of sex-related stimulation. One of its most distinctive traits
is the profusion of terms to refer to the female body and sexuality, mainly
destined to arouse men sexually. Pornographic language is potentially
aggressive, as it may serve to destroy women’s intimacy and maybe
constitutes one of the strongest FTAs language can articulate.
Pornography (much more than eroticism) defeats any politeness
expectations –while erotic language may serve to stimulate positive
responses on readers or speakers, pornography constitutes a purposeful
attack on others’ (mainly women’s) dignity.
Another area of sexual language which deserves commenting upon is
swearing, which “shows a curious convergence of the high and the low,
the sacred and the profane” (Hughes 1991: 4). Until recently, there was a
stereotypical saying that (sexual) swearing was a male preserve. And as
for the swearwords used:
On swearing the general feminist view is that, since language is generated
in a ‘patriarchal’ or ‘phallocentric’ dispensation, there has developed,
especially in male swearing, a prevalence of the terms of feminine
anatomy, such as cunt and tit. (Hughes 1991: 206-7)
Women have not traditionally been considered (or expected) to be
swearers. Feminism has brought about a more liberal attitude towards
women’s swearing. In fact, women’s talking dirty has been reclaimed as
one of women’s (linguistic) rights. Liladhar (2000) studies stand-up
comedian Jenny Eclair’s performance in Top Bitch. She suggests that
Jenny Eclair is a good –though ambivalent– instance of women
progressively transgressing gender boundaries and occupying the
traditional territories of masculinity: speaking about sexuality in public,
using strong expletives, telling dirty jokes, eschewing overpolite and
euphemistic language, etc. Contemporary film or TV heroines are also
testimony to the fact that women are swearing to a greater extent than
they were in the past and that they are doing it in a conscious and
provocative way. Let us remember that around swearwords –as well as
around pornography or eroticism– moral reform projects have been
historically articulated.
13
THE LANGUAGE OF SEX: SAYING & NOT SAYING
A strong connection between social patterns of politeness and the
language of sex is offered by the cinema adult ratings. Rating boards in
different countries, like the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of
America), the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) or the Spanish
ICAE (Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Escénicas) usually
classify or rate newly released films. The factors taken into account to
issue these codes are: theme, language, nudity and sex, violence, etc.
Apparently, cinema goers need to be protected from the potentially facethreatening force of –basically– sexually explicit language; therefore, the
strictest ratings seem to depend on the presence/absence of sexual
language. The R rating may include, among other things, strong sexuallyderived words, whereas a NC-17 rating might involve, though not
necessarily, the use of obscene or pornographic words and situations.
While these ratings (and, historically, others like ‘S’ or ‘X’) are
meticulously applied to sexual and obscene language in films, no similar
ratings are applied on the same scale to films like Rambo or Terminator
which, at best, constitute a glorification of violence and of political
control. The need for official institutions to regulate the effect of films on
audiences is only an implicit reminder of the destabilising character of
sex and sexual language.
Sexual language, however, is experienced differently in each society
or period –the use, abuse or avoidance of sexual terms differs
interlinguistically and interculturally and is, perhaps, one of the main
indices of each society. Besides, politeness is not operative when people
face-threateningly address their interlocutors, but is experienced “as an
overall style of behaviour that is decidedly to be approved of” (Sell 1992:
155).
The same can be said of impoliteness. A polite act can be experienced
as impolite, and vice-versa. The perception of (im)politeness is highly
individual and not restricted to specific traits, although (im)politeness is
also a social question, governed by different social forces at different
historical moments. 18th-century readers were –it seems– not so easily
offended by physical references to sex as Victorians were. Travelling
from period to period, or from country to country, we find differences in
politeness expectations, as far as sex is concerned. The very inscription of
desire may distort our perceptions of (im)politeness.
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1. Researching the language of sex: gender, discourse and (im)politeness
4.- Conclusion
Research on the language of sex is an extremely sensitive area, and more
often than not, it seems that one is stepping inadvertently into the
forbidden areas of experience. There are lots of social pressures on the
(sexual) language to be used. Even in an academic setting, sexual
discourse still needs prologues and apologies –as Braun says, “It is as
though the very act of talking transgresses a boundary between private
experience and public talking that cannot be excused, even by the veil of
‘scientific objectivity’ that the university research mantles provides”
(Braun 1999: 368).
Sex articulates incessant –and often conflicting– discourses on the
self. It gives rise to a wealth of texts and discourses, of words and
registers, of literary traditions and ideological paradigms, even to the
attitude of whole civilisations. The language of sex reveals and reinforces
important (underlying) cultural and ideological assumptions, and is
probably the most powerful textualising device there is.
As Foucault convincingly showed, sexuality is constituted in
discourse and, therefore, our idea of sex is a discursive construction.
Researching sexual language always involves putting together different
languages and cultures, and a variety of disciplines, often with
irreconcilable approaches. Sexual language is perhaps one of the best
sources of identity construction, of ideological metaphors, of narratives
which revolve around the self and try to define it. Sex originates complex
discourses (in the Foucauldian sense) at a multiplicity of levels –personal,
social, textual, cultural, historical, etc.– which strongly determine our
language and our attitude.
Its connection with politeness is also obvious: sexual language is an
intimate index of our relationship with others, of our empathy with our
interlocutors, of our understanding of what social conversation is.
Euphemisms, insults, swearwords, cat-whistles or film censorship are just
a few areas where sexual language and (im)politeness meet. The language
of sex defeats the traditional expectation, in politeness theory, of a
rational man or woman who reacts in rational and cooperative ways to
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THE LANGUAGE OF SEX: SAYING & NOT SAYING
any interactional move. The language of sex is, by definition, the territory
of the irrational and of desire.
It is very difficult to think of sexual language without being aware of
an endless string of implications. It goes beyond the purely verbal (sexrelated) choices and includes the whole field of desire, obscenity, the
unsaid, pleasure, taboo, etc. It is revealing to find out that most of our
institutions and our societal norms, of our irrational behaviours and our
capacity of transgression, are articulated around the discourse of sex. Sex
(and sexual language) seems to encode one’s strategic vantage point on
ideology, politics, history, culture, freedom, (im)morality, respect, etc.
The language of sex serves to metaphorize our fears and anxieties.
The presence/absence or use/abuse of sexual language is instrumental
in the construction (or at least in the perception) of a series of
gender/sexual identities. If a person uses very few sexual words or avoids
them altogether, he/she is perceived as a ‘prude’. If he/she uses what
might be felt as too many sexual terms, he/she may be considered as foulmouthed, indecent or obscene, and is liable to (depending on the time and
place) legal persecution or social stigmatisation (see the articles on Sir
Bob Geldof and Jamie Oliver). Sex is possibly the discourse which most
profoundly constructs us as human and ideological beings.
------------------------------
There follow now five chapters devoted to practical advice for the
analysis of sexual language, which cover a vast (lingusitic) territory
driven by desire and by the ups and downs of morality, by societal taboos
and individual discursive strategies.
Helen Sauntson studies informal spoken discourse and analyses how
diverse sexualities (heterosexual, gay, lesbian) are constructed through
everyday conversation, how sexual identities are constantly
(re)negotiated, affirmed or rejected in seemingly irrelevant conversations,
etc. Sexual identities are mainly social and are basically achieved through
talk about gender expectations rather than through explicit talk about sex
or desire. In her chapter, Sauntson offers clear examples of the
16
1. Researching the language of sex: gender, discourse and (im)politeness
application(s) of discourse analysis to the study of sexual language in
naturally occurring conversations.
Dolores Jiménez focuses her study on the 17th-century French
anonymous pornographic novel L’École des filles ou la philosophie des
dames (1655), as an example of the reaction against the highly
sentimental and euphemistic style epitomized by the Précieuses (the
Marquise de Rambouillet or Mlle. de Scudéry), whose ideal was a
disembodied and emotional, demure and chaste type of literature. French
pornographic novels like L’École, Chorier’s Aloisiae Sigae Toletane
Satyra sotadica (1660) or Vénus dans le cloître (1682) constitute an
antidote to the official ‘verbal hygiene’ and a celebration of love and
physical sex, along the lines of Aretino’s dialogues. The reflections of
academicians, lexicographers or philosophers in 17th-century France
bring about the concept of the obscene –words are judged socially from a
moral standpoint and they are either chaste or unchaste, moral or
immoral, ‘clean’ or ‘dirty’. In French pornography, sex is simultaneously
revealed and hidden through a rhetoric of euphemism –countless sexual
metaphors are invented for sex organs, desires and postures.
Sexual euphemisms deserve special attention, as they are an important
part of the expressive mechanisms of most languages. Juan José Calvo
devotes a chapter to the anthropological, historical and linguistic origins
of the concept of taboo –i.e. “all those words or sets of words referring to
objects, concepts or actions that a given society considers to be
individually or collectively subject to proscription” (Calvo, this volume:
65). Unpleasant subjects, criminal actions, religious rituals, parts of the
body, bodily functions or the whole field of sex(uality) are the province
of euphemisms –i.e. the attempt to hide or disguise unpleasant or
inconvenient referents for specific social groups. Francisco Sánchez
Benedito summarises the main types of euphemisms used in English to
describe sexual organs or actions. Euphemisms are linguistic mechanisms
to name the basic obscenities (or ‘four-letter words’ –fuck, cunt, cock,
etc.) through socially acceptable terms, as they are regarded as distasteful,
unpleasant or ‘dirty’ within a given society. Euphemisms are invented to
dignify certain terms, to downplay their potential offensiveness or to
name taboo objects or actions. Euphemisms like to make love or to go to
bed with someone have undergone a complete process of lexicalisation
17
THE LANGUAGE OF SEX: SAYING & NOT SAYING
(thus having a primary sexual meaning) whereas others (e.g. to ride, to
mount, to nibble, to pull a train, etc.) are semi-lexicalised, as they retain a
certain level of ambiguity in meaning. Besides, they make up a series of
perfectly articulated and consistent conceptual or metaphorical networks
(such as war and violence, riding, hunting, fishing, travelling, eating and
so on) (see Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Sánchez Benedito 1998, 2004).
Taking euphemism and ambiguity as starting points, Patricia
Alabarta partially illustrates the language of sex in a series of headlines
found in a selection of British, American and Spanish editions of
Cosmopolitan. Women’s magazines today are a popular subject of study
because of their breathtaking sales figures around the world and are
actively consumed by millions of women as a form of self-help literature.
Therefore, they offer invaluable insights into the construction of (trendy
contemporary urban) women’s sexualities. In a consumer society like
ours, they sell a glamorous ideal world for women made of fun, sex and
success. Euphemistic and ambiguous headlines (e.g. ‘READ HIS DIRTY
MIND! THE SECRET SEXY THOUGHTS ALL MEN ARE DYING TO TELL YOU
ABOUT’) remind us that sex is a powerful discourse in our society, which
constructs and commodifies us as human and sexual beings.
As we can see, this volume is organized around the ‘saying’ vs. ‘not
saying’ divide: the chapters by Sauntson and Jiménez offer practical
analyses of, respectively, informal conversations and 17th century French
pornography; the chapters by Calvo and Sánchez Benedito –as well as
Alabarta’s partial analysis– focus rather on the importance of not saying
in English language. Though methodologically sound, the ‘saying’ vs.
‘not saying’ divide has revealed itself particularly sterile when it comes to
the expression and research of sexual desire: in everyday conversation, in
erotic or pornographic literature, in advertising, in women’s magazines,
etc. the expression of desire is always the result of a constant struggle
between revealing and hiding, between bold naming and innuendo. The
desire to name and the pleasure to hide are two sides of the same
discursive coin.
I hope these chapters will serve as a stimulus for further research in
the field of sexual language, a field which urgently demands both
practical analyses and –most especially– a firm ethical attitude. One of
18
1. Researching the language of sex: gender, discourse and (im)politeness
the main ethical imperatives of research(ers) is to fight any sort of
(moral) prejudice, censorship or (intellectual) reductionism.
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